They're exploiting phpBB open-source forum software, says researcher
May 12, 2008 (Computerworld) More than half a million Web sites have been compromised in a new round of attacks that hacked domains in order to infect unsuspecting users' PCs with a variety of malware, a security researcher said today.
"This is an ongoing campaign, with new domains
popping up even this morning," said Paul Ferguson, a network architect at antivirus vendor Trend Micro Inc. "The domains are changing constantly."
According to Ferguson, over half a million legitimate Web sites have been hacked by today's mass-scale attack, only the latest in a string that goes back to at least January. All of the sites, he confirmed, are running "phpBB," an open-source message forum manager.
Ferguson didn't know how the sites were compromised; Trend Micro's investigation is in progress, he said. "We're not sure if it's improper configuration of phpBB or a vulnerability. Open-source applications like phpBB tend to be targeted quite a bit."
Visitors to a hacked site are redirected through a series of servers, some clearly compromised themselves, until the last in the chain is reached; that server then pings the PC for any one of several vulnerabilities, including bugs in both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and RealNetworks' RealPlayer media player. If any of the vulnerabilities is present, the PC is exploited and malware is downloaded to it.
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